Sorry to be a couple of years late on this answer to a question about the first downtown Boston theater to show CinemaScope: “The Robe” opened on Oct. 7, 1953 at RKO Keith Memorial. The premiere was delayed about a month due to the popularity of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” at the Keith. It took about 48 hours for about 100 men to install the lenses, screen and stereophonic sound system. Regarding the Orpheum, the 1931 photo shows the Loews Orpheum blade sign. Currently I think there’s a blade stating Orpheum. In the 50s and 60s, it had a blade that stated simply Loew’s. As a young teen, I was there for the first morning premiere of the Beatles' “Help”.

I walked by Hamilton Place this morning and noted that there is scaffolding all across the Orpheum facade. This facade has been kept in good condition, so I don’t know what sort of work is being performed. It’s nice to hear that the operators have spruced up the auditorium, which needed it badly. In recent years, the interior of the Orpheum had become a sleazy dump. I also went by the Paramount this morning: at 11 AM on a bright sunny day, the marquee and vertical were fully lit up with today’s version of “chase lights” in operation. A nice sight.

Looking at the new photo gallery at their official website (http://crossroadspresents.com/orpheum-theatre/photos), it looks like at the least, the auditorium has been completely repainted and the seats re-upholstered. It looks quite nice in there.

Has the Orpheum been repaired, refurbished inside recently? I note on local TV some ads for a “Sesame Street Live” show coming into the Orpheum soon. These childrens shows usually play at the Boston Opera House. If I was the parent or grandparent of a young child, the Orpheum is not exactly the first place to which I would want to take him/her. Unless they have spruced it up inside.

Just as historical trivia, Loew’s Orpheum was the venue for the Boston premiere of the 1958 film “The Last Hurrah,” based on the novel of the same title by Edwin O'Connor. The movie starred Spencer Tracy as “Frank Skeffington,” a character loosely modeled after Boston’s famous/infamous mayor James Michael Curley. The film shamelessly sentimentalized Skeffington, making him out to be a sort of lovable rogue, whereas in historical fact Curley was anything but lovable. O'Connor, after viewing the premiere, acidly suggested that the back of the seats at Loew’s Orpheum should have been equipped “with the kind of equipment they have on airplanes.” By which he meant barf bags. See Jack Beatty’s superb 1992 biography of Curley, “The Rascal King.”

Curley himself, by the way, was involved in a number of theater-related incidents/issues during his four (non-consecutive) terms as mayor. Most significant of these was his highly controversial decision in 1915 to permit, over intense protest by the black community and civic leaders, the showing of the notoriously racist and inflammatory D.W. Griffith film “Birth of a Nation.” The movie opened at the Tremont Theater in April, 1915 and ran for over six months.

This theater is listed as the “Empire” in the 1906 Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. This was after the heavy reconstruction of Summer, 1900; and further alterations in 1904-05. The seating capacity is listed as 1,844, but the breakdown does not add up to that: Orchestra 845; Balcony 518, Gallery 333; total: 1,696 plus box seats. Tickets cost 25 cents to 75 cents. The proscenium opening was 41 feet wide X 30 feet high, and the stage was 38 feet deep. The listing says that the Empire was occupied at that time by the Empire Stock Company.

Another Globe article says that the name changed from Loew’s Orpheum to just Orpheum in August of 1967, which seems to be confirmed by the daily film listings for that month. (I haven’t yet figured out if there’s a way to see advertisements in the Globe archives.)

Later articles in 1971 say that films returned to the Orpheum/Aquarius from time to time, with a showing of “Jimi Hendrix At Berkeley” on 9/3/71, and a 99-cent double-feature festival programmed by Justin Freed (later of the Park Square, Kenmore Square, and Coolidge Corner) during the first ten days of 1972: A Man Called Horse with The Detective; The Sterile Cuckoo with Plaza Suite; Rosemary’s Baby with Wait Until Dark.

I just found part of the answer, since the Boston Globe now provides free access to its entire archive for 7-day subscribers. The Orpheum closed as a movie theatre on January 31, 1971 and reopened as the Aquarius, a live concert hall, on May 27, 1971. The first featured performer was James Brown.

The new owner was an African-American business owner and activist named Arthur Scott. Newspaper articles of the time compared his new venture to the Apollo Theatre in New York City.

Don King’s time-line says that the theater name was changed to Aquarius Theatre on January 18, 1972. That sounds about right to me. But I seem to recall that the Orpheum name was brought back later sort of informally, over a period of time. King implies that Loews gave up operations not long before the Aquarius name change.

Can anyone here establish exact dates when the theatre was renamed to Aquarius, and when it reverted back to Orpheum? It would also be nice to know when the last regularly-scheduled movie ran, and what it was.

Donald King in his Boston theaters history book covers the confusing changes of name at this theater between 1900 and 1910, already mentioned above, but worth repeating. In the summer of 1900, the Boston Music Hall underwent heavy reconstruction inside to convert it from a concert hall into a vaudeville theater. The orientation of the auditorium was reversed, from looking toward the stage at the south end of the building, to facing it at the north end. When it reopened in early-Sept 1900, it was still named “Boston Music Hall”. In Feb. 1905, it was renamed the Empire Theatre. Boston movie theater historian Joe Cifre included the Empire as one of Boston’s earliest movie film venues. In 1906, it became the Orpheum Theater, and was under management by William Morris. He presented short movies as part of two-a-day vaudeville shows. In 1909, it was briefly named American Music Hall before becoming Loew’s Orpheum Theater the following year when Marcus Loew took it over. He did not renovate it into its present appearance until 1915.

Yes, when the house closed for major renovations which created today’s auditorium, it was already being run by Marcus Loew, so it was an early Loew house. The “11 PM” is when the shows usually ended for the day. The vaude shows of that day also often included various movie shorts at the end of the program, so they were not 100% live.

There was a vertical sign above the Washington St. entrance of the Orpheum in the 1950s, but I don’t think it was as tall as the one Mann photographed in 1931. On another matter: The Boston Public Library has an on-line video collection “Boston at the Movies”. One of the novelty films is “Boston Subway from an Electric Car”. They say it was filmed in downtown Boston in Dec. 1900, Copyrighted in Dec. 1901, first shown on Jan. 7, 1901 at the Boston Music Hall. In view of the Copyright date, I wonder if the first show was on Jan. 7, 1902?? In any event, by Jan. 1901 or 1902, the Boston Music Hall no longer existed, and had been remodeled into the Orpheum.